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[Award Winner] Eneini: a medieval city tutorial (in Photoshop)

Okay, friends, as requested I am attaching the first part of my city map tutorial, which shows the process I followed to create Eneini in Photoshop. I hope it helps you in some minor way with your own endeavors!

Attached is part one of the tutorial. Part two will be in the next message.

Thanks very much for the tutorials. I had the time to follow them through using the GIMP. I kept a few notes along the way to highlight differences in the applications, but feel the results turned out satisfactory.

This was done as a technical exercise, as opposed to mapping for a purpose, so you may see a strong resemblance with your tutorial map
The real trick is in the streets. I found it took an incredibly long time to hand draw in streets. most of mine ended up either too rough, or too straight. I think it would be easier with something other than a mouse...maybe I need to buy that graphic tablet...

-Rob A>

P.S> This was about 6 hours effort.

EDIT: I posted on the end of this thread rather than starting its own as this was to demonstrate the tutorial...

EDIT2: I cleaned the layers up a bit, removed some of the texture layers, and adjusted the levels. Also, some judicious use of unsharp mask was applied to emphasize the man made object layers

Thanks very much for the tutorials. I had the time to follow them through using the GIMP. I kept a few notes along the way to highlight differences in the applications, but feel the results turned out satisfactory.

No, thank YOU for using the tutorial & posting the results. It's nice to know someone else 1) can follow my chickenscratch; and 2) found my six-fingered, humpbacked brainchild interesting & worthwhile enough to take the time to use it. Nice work, too!

I would be very interested in seeing your GIMP notes--perhaps to add to the original tutorial or perhaps to post as a second, separate tutorial for GIMP users. I also have a couple questions about your end results in comparison to mine (ex: does GIMP not have the same filter(s) as Photoshop?) Would you be willing to email your notes & ideas to me?

Originally Posted by RobA

The real trick is in the streets. I found it took an incredibly long time to hand draw in streets. most of mine ended up either too rough, or too straight. I think it would be easier with something other than a mouse...maybe I need to buy that graphic tablet...

Yes, tell me about it, my friend! I tried many, many different filters, fills, processes, & combos of all the above to create the effect without the need to draw in all those streets by hand, but none of them turned out worth a darn. All fell at either end of the spectrum: either too mechanical or too random.

Drawing those streets with a mouse (and I did it with my first map, so I know too) is a major pain; the tablet helps a lot. So do lots of breaks. And listening to songs like "Carefree Highway," "On the Road Again," and "Route 66" over & over again.

On the up-side, a positive aspect of my "artsy fartsy-ish" map style is that I don't need to become Captain Anal Retentive and sweat over each & every street, but I can instead "scribble & slash" them to suggest reality. I don't think yours looks at all bad, Rob, but I'd put in about another 50% worth of side streets, alleys, courtyards & such.

Thanks again to everyone for your compliments; I'm so happy I was able to give you a little something. Again, please let me know if you find improvements or can suggest ideas.

I would be very interested in seeing your GIMP notes--perhaps to add to the original tutorial or perhaps to post as a second, separate tutorial for GIMP users. I also have a couple questions about your end results in comparison to mine (ex: does GIMP not have the same filter(s) as Photoshop?) Would you be willing to email your notes & ideas to me?

No problem, just need to make them a bit cleaner. The big difference is that Gimp doesn't have layer effects. You need to apply effects as separate layers. That means that if you change the original layer, you have to redo the effect layer. Take drop shadow as an example. I f you erase a part of the main layer, you would have to regenerate the drop shadow or there will be an anomalous bit of one left.

Originally Posted by pyrandon

Yes, tell me about it, my friend! I tried many, many different filters, fills, processes, & combos of all the above to create the effect without the need to draw in all those streets by hand, but none of them turned out worth a darn. All fell at either end of the spectrum: either too mechanical or too random.

I did a bit of experimentation, and there is one filter in GIMP that gives interesting results...mosaic. I make the "grout" the same green as the fields to make it appear as grass in peoples yards. I have attached a sample

Originally Posted by pyrandon

I don't think yours looks at all bad, Rob, but I'd put in about another 50% worth of side streets, alleys, courtyards & such.

I agree, the look like big lumps. I was just getting fatigued. I think the mosaic might be a good solution. Just need to play with the settings more.

Clever idea, Rob! The mosaic tiles do not look bad in the GIMP edition you've posted; not bad at all. I think one would still need to hand-draw in most of the same alley & sidestreet lines, so I'm not convinced this is a huge time saver. Is that assumption correct?

Also, after playing with Photoshop a bit I can't seem to reproduce your exact effect, even using the mosaic, mosaic tiles, and other pixelate/texture filters; even with some play adding other filters, etc., the result appears too "geometric" in my tests.

Another option occurred to me while playing: creating a "buildings" brush that dabs in groups (or lines) of houses; I had thought of this more for villages, where the spaces would be greater, but I wonder if I could make it work for cities, too. I'll have to experiment with that.

I have attached the Gimp dialog. I found the best effect was as selected (for buildings.
I also did a quick test running the mosaic filter three times. Also attached. Think I'll keep playing as there seems some potential for filling large areas easily. There has to be a reasonable programmatic way to generate streets.... might have to look into L-systems and fractals again